APRIL 2026 READING RECAP: 13 BOOKS REVIEWED, INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST PICKS & BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH (TOM’S CROSSING)

April Reading Recap — What I Actually Sat With This Month

April felt like a month of being inside people’s heads. Not plot-heavy, not clean arcs—just characters circling identity, memory, grief, and the versions of themselves they can’t quite shake. Some books landed hard. Some didn’t fully come together. But nothing felt forgettable.

I ended up reading 13 books, with a mix of 5-star standouts, a few solid 4s, and a couple that didn’t quite get there.

The Standouts (5⭐)

This month had some heavy hitters.

• The Dream Life of Larry Rios — by Alex Z. Salinas
  Probably the strangest reading experience of the month—in a good way. Fragmented, restless, funny, and honest. It doesn’t follow a straight line and doesn’t try to. Feels like being inside someone’s thoughts mid-spiral.
• Lázár — by Nelio Biedermann
  Quietly devastating. Moves through generations and history without ever losing sight of the people inside it. Every small moment feels intentional.
• A History of Heartache — by Patrick Strickland
  Bleak, sharp, and uncomfortably real. Small-town lives that feel worn down from the start. Nothing flashy—just precise and heavy in the way real life is.
• Other Worlds — by André Alexis
  Subtle, strange, and quietly unsettling. Plays with meaning, language, and reality in a way that sneaks up on you.
• Favorite of the month:
  Tom’s Crossing — by Mark Z. Danielewski
  This one stuck. On paper it’s simple—two kids, a promise, a journey—but it builds into something heavier. Feels like a story someone’s telling you late at night, swearing it’s true. Messy characters, real emotion, and that constant undercurrent of grief that never fully lifts. Took my time with it—and it was worth it.

Strong Reads (4–4.5⭐)

• The Others — by Sheena Kalayil
  A quiet love triangle set against the collapse of East Germany. More about identity and belonging than romance. Subtle but effective.
• White River Crossing — by Ian McGuire
  Brutal, cold, and stripped of any romanticism. A slow unraveling driven by greed and bad decisions.
• Honey in the Wound — by Jiyoung Han
  Heavy, generational trauma told with care. The magical realism adds something instead of distracting from it.
• Tarantula — by Eduardo Halfon (4.5⭐)
  Short, unsettling, and all about memory—how unreliable it is, and how it reshapes what we think we know.

Middle Ground (3–3.5⭐)

• The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran — by Shida Bazyar
  One of the quieter books this month. Follows a family across generations in exile. Not explosive, but thoughtful and steady.
• Woodwind Harmony in the Nighttime — by Reza Ghassemi
  Disorienting, introspective, and a little uneven. More about identity unraveling than plot.
• Permanence — by Sophie Mackintosh
  Dreamlike and atmospheric, but it drifts a bit too much. Interesting idea about desire vs. reality, though.

Didn’t Quite Land (2⭐)

• The Witch — by Marie NDiaye
  One of my biggest misses this month. Strong concept—inheritance, power, motherhood—but it never fully commits to any of it.

International Booker Prize 2026 📚

This month I read 2 books from the International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist:

• The Witch — Marie NDiaye
• The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran — Shida Bazyar

One didn’t work for me, one did (quietly). Still glad I picked both up—always worth seeing what’s getting recognized globally.

Final Thoughts

April leaned introspective. A lot of these books weren’t trying to entertain in a traditional way—they were trying to sit with something. Identity, memory, displacement, grief… all the stuff that doesn’t resolve cleanly.

Some books hit hard. Some stayed at a distance.